Why pick on our doctors?
What you need to know:
- So before sacking doctors and other public officials, the axe should first fall on those supervisors who have been sleeping on the job for the past 30 years.
This week’s breaking news included an item on plans that may see doctors in government service getting the sack – possibly without gratuity or pension – for operating private clinics or moonlighting at private hospitals.
If such action were extended to the rest of the public service (not just the civil service), there would be no public service to speak of.
And maybe that is why the rumoured action is limited to doctors only so far.
As an elder, I like to narrate stories from history, so here is a quick history lesson.
When I joined the civil service – back in the 1970s – it was well-nigh impossible for a public servant to moonlight.
In fact we took it that having a second job, or even a side hustle as we say these days, was illegal for a public servant. And it was not because we were “well paid”.
I recall my own father, a medical assistant, would struggle to buy us decent food, clothe us, and educate us.
But he never moonlighted; he operated a private clinic only after retiring early.
The most crucial thing about those days was that we had effective supervision. Any absenteeism, however brief, would be immediately noticed and the absent individual sanctioned.
Back to today. Why pick on doctors? Teachers and professors moonlight or run private schools, maybe even private tertiary institutions.
Engineers, architects, economists, statisticians, lawyers and other professionals in public service moonlight or run all manner of businesses from consultancies, to law firms to drug shops, wholesale shops, supermarkets, forex bureau, and tour and travel companies, to name but a few examples.
So again, why pick on doctors? If doctors must be sanctioned, so should other public servants.
But as my short history lesson above showed, public officials are up to moonlighting these days, not because they must make ends meet, but because they are not effectively supervised.
So before sacking doctors and other public officials, the axe should first fall on those supervisors who have been sleeping on the job for the past 30 years.
So over to you Honourable at Ministry of Public Service; but where should the purge stop? Supervisors also have supervisors!
HGK Nyakoojo, Buziga, Kampala.
